Kevin Harvick entered 2012 with the belief that third in the Sprint Cup standings was unacceptable.

The last two seasons, he had finished third in points but he didn’t feel his team had what it took to win a championship. He asked for, and received, not just a crew chief change from Gil Martin to Shane Wilson but virtually an entirely new crew.

Kevin Harvick won at Phoenix two days after news leaked he may be leaving Richard Childress Racing after 2013. (AP Photo)

After two races, that seemed like a good plan. He finished seventh at Daytona. He led 88 laps and finished second at Phoenix in what turned into a fuel-mileage race. He had another top-five a few weeks later at California. He was fifth in the standings and leading laps.

But after leading laps in six of the first 12 races, Harvick didn’t lead another one over the next 12. He posted only two top-10s in the same stretch.

As NASCAR changed rules on the cars, the Richard Childress Racing organization had trouble adapting. By the end of August, Martin was back as Harvick’s crew chief.

Things never really got all that much better. He made the Chase and after Martin took over, Harvick had seven straight finishes of 15th or better. But he never got to where he wanted to be.

The season came to an explosive end as news leaked that Harvick would leave RCR after the 2013 season for Stewart-Haas Racing (something neither Harvick nor SHR has acknowledged just yet). Two days after that story broke, Harvick won at Phoenix.

Harvick finished eighth in the standings, his worst finish in points since 2009.

“It was an odd season, to say the least,” Harvick said. “We had a lot of ups and downs and a lot of mediocre days. But as the season got towards the end leading into the Chase, we had some good days and still never had that constant consistency that we needed to be able to win enough races.

“We were able to get back into victory lane at Phoenix and make the Chase. You always want it to be better and you think you know what you need to be better but it will take a while to put all the pieces back together.”

Highlight: The highlight was Harvick’s lone victory at Phoenix in the next-to-last race of the season. It showed that Harvick could get the job done amid turmoil as two days earlier the news broke that Harvick might leave RCR after 2013.

Low point: A 16th-place finish at Michigan in August doesn’t sound like a horrible day. But it signaled the end of Harvick’s experiment with Wilson as his crew chief. Harvick was 10th at Michigan earlier in the year but with new rules on the height of the car and a different tire, the August event was just another sign that the team had lost the ability to work together to get a handle on the car. By the next week, Harvick had a “new” crew chief in Martin.

Defining moment: The defining moment for Harvick came off the track on July 8 when he and his wife, DeLana, welcomed son Keelan into the world. The Harvicks sold their Kevin Harvick Inc. race team a year earlier in order to begin a family, and Harvick nearly missed the race at Daytona a day earlier when DeLana thought she was going into labor. Harvick has talked often about the new perspective he gained after becoming a father.

Outlook for 2013: No one can guess where 2013 is going for Harvick. A fierce competitor, he might be able to put his pending departure at the end of the season out of his mind. Or he might get swallowed in frustration. Wait and see. Whatever it is, it will be interesting.